Expert: Junior Seau CTE was not caused by football concussions

January 11, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A football concussion researcher
says the CTE damage discovered in the brain of deceased NFL All-Pro linebacker
Junior Seau was likely not caused by concussions, but rather by an accumulation
of thousands of subconcussive blows to the head.

The Purdue University Neurotrauma Group has been examining
the brains of scores of high school football players over the past four seasons
and discovered that the hundreds of hits these players take to the head each
season has an immediate and lingering detrimental effect on how their brains
function.

Biomedical engineering professor Tom Talavage says fMRI
exams reveal that even in athletes never diagnosed with concussions, activity
in portions of the brain most prone to impacts begins to shut down and basic
cognitive tasks become more difficult to perform even in the course of one high
school season.

"Seau played a savage brand of football for a quarter
century without a single diagnosis of concussion as a professional. Just
increasing efforts to improve concussion diagnosis is a waste of time and
taxpayer money," Talavage said. "We need to figure out how to reduce
the number of hits to these kids' heads."

Purdue research using helmet sensors and sideline
computers revealed that high school players receive up to 1,800 hits to the
head per season, some ranging as high in force as 250 Gs. Purdue engineers have
developed new helmet liner technology that reduces the impact to the brain by
50 percent. Talavage also suggests fewer contact drills during practices and a
baseball-style "hit count" that, when exceeded, automatically
sidelines a player.

"Current helmet technology, which has hardly improved
over the past 40 years, was designed to prevent skull fractures," Talavage
said. "It does a good job at that, but the helmets were never designed to
significantly protect the brain itself."

Purdue Neurotrauma Group research on football concussions
has been featured in Sports Illustrated, ESPN, HBO Real Sports with Bryant
Gumbel, PBS Frontline, NBC Nightly News and CNN.

Note to
Journalists: Experts are available in person, and via satellite, Vyvx,
Skype, and telephone. Broadcast-quality B-roll and sound bites are available.
For more information, contact Jim Schenke, Purdue News Service, at 765-237-7296,
jschenke@purdue.edu.